Perhaps you were among the eight million people on the Internet who watched Austrian adventurer Felix Baumgartener skydive from the edge of space last week.

I certainly was.

I tuned in early, when Felix’s shiny capsule, dangling below a gossamer balloon the size of a skyscraper, was climbing through 40,000 feet, already higher than most commercial air traffic, but a staggering 80,000 feet shy of his final altitude.

His rate of climb, which was a fairly steady 1000 feet per minute, meant that I was in for nearly an hour and half of balloon-watching before we got to the main event: the moment Felix would climb out on the absurdly tiny front stoop of the capsule, which the announcer kept describing as “the size of a skateboard,” and take the bunny hop that would either shroud him in glory, or prove fatal. Or both.

If you set aside the fact that every single visible surface in every camera shot was blazoned with the words “Red Bull,” the primary sponsor of the Stratos “mission,” you might have thought you were watching a NASA rocket launch. It had all the trappings of one: a legion of mission controllers issuing tense instructions; a swarm of chase vehicles; even a handsome saluting astronaut, complete with spacesuit and a terrific crewcut.

In fact, there was a scientific dimension to the Stratos mission: to test a new generation of pressure suit, one that might prove to be a lifesaver for astronauts forced to abandon their craft at the edge of space. Much was made of the participation of former NASA flight surgeon Dr. Jonathan Clark, whose wife, Dr. Laurel Clark, also a flight surgeon, perished in the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster in 2003.

There were legitimate medical question to be settled about what happens to the human body when it breaks the sound barrier — outside of an aircraft.

This was no stunt. The mission was seven years in the planning. The team included real scientists and doctors asking bona fide scientific questions, and collecting data in a professional manner.

But let’s not fool ourselves. The science was a legitimate overlay of the mission, but the main thrust was the promotion of two brands: Felix Baumgartener, Daredevil; and Red Bull, purveyor of highly profitable energy drinks.

The privatization of our space program is certainly coming into its own. Just a few days before Mr. Baumgartener’s historic leap, Elon Musk’s Space-X company made its first commercial delivery to the International Space Station.

And it’s not just space. We’re also seeing private individuals push other boundaries of exploration. Filmmaker James Cameron’s descent in March to the bottom of the Mariana Trench comes to mind.

By pursuing individual glory, adventurers like Mr. Cameron and Mr. Baumgartener, and their forebears who made privately funded voyages to the far corners of the earth, have contributed greatly to the advancement of science and geography. But their triumphs have been private triumphs.

In the moments before he jumped, against the spectacular backdrop of the curving earth, twenty-four miles below, Mr. Baumgartener made a final observation for posterity. His words were blocked by static and by his shortened breath, but here they are:

I know the whole world is watching right now and I wish the world could see what I can see. Sometimes you have to go up really high to understand how small you really are.

A fitting message for a man humbled by the prospect of dying, or perhaps merely humbled by the view of earth from the very edge of space. For a self-promoter whose life, up to that point, was about making the very loudest statement possible — “Here I am, pay attention to me!” — the feeling of puniness might have come as something of a surprise.

I’d like to enter into the record the words of another famous explorer, Neil Armstrong, as he set foot on the moon on July 21st, 1969.

That’s one small step for [a] man; one giant leap for mankind.

Surely Mr. Armstrong felt humbled by the moment. No doubt he felt small.

But there was a larger picture. The Apollo mission was an expression of the highest aspirations of an entire nation. Something like 600 million people around the world tuned in to watch a human being walk on the moon. As President Nixon said, in one of the strangest phone calls ever placed from the Oval Office — to the surface of the moon! — “For one priceless moment in the whole history of man, all the people on this earth are truly one — one in their pride in what you have done, and one in our prayers that you will return safely to earth.”

My hat’s off to Felix Baumgartener for his bravery and his accomplishments. But there’s a lot more to heroism than personal glory and a bump in soda sales.

 

 

This column was published in the Perry Co Times on 25 October 2012

For more information, please contact Mr. Olshan at writing@matthewolshan.com